by Sarah Rayne
‘Perfunctory?’
‘Perfunctory will do. Their trouble is they haven’t enough evidence to promote a large-scale search; our trouble was that the only evidence we’d got was so unbelievable we didn’t dare disclose it. But the appointment with Vogel was written in Kate’s diary, and she didn’t return from it. We’re sure that Vogel’s got her but we can’t prove he has.’
‘What about his office?’ said Ciaran. ‘Or his home?’
‘Both closed up with answerphones to take messages.’
‘What did Kate think was behind this Serse set-up?’ asked Isarel.
‘I don’t think she knew, not properly. But she knew the coffin-creature was connected with it, and she was going to try to use him to expose the whole thing. She was pretty pleased at having got him out of your monastery,’ said Lauren, grinning at Ciaran. ‘And I remember that she laughed about locking the coffin in the cellar with him inside it. She said it felt as if she’d got on to the set of a schlock horror film and that if Moira hadn’t been there to help, she’d have lost her nerve.’ Lauren paused, and then said, ‘She didn’t know you two were following her, though, I’m pretty sure about that.’
‘We weren’t very efficient,’ said Ciaran. ‘We lost her crossing the Irish Sea.’
‘I’m not surprised,’ said Ms Mayhew promptly. ‘I’ve lost all kinds of things crossing the Irish Sea. It’s turbulent and very feisty.’ She sent Ciaran an appraising look. ‘But I’m rather partial to turbulent feisty Irishness. Should I call you Brother or Father, or what?’
‘Just Ciaran.’
‘Well then, tell me, Ciaran, do you take part in all those high-gloss Catholic ceremonies? High Mass and Evensong and so on?’
‘I do.’
‘Plainchant? What about plainchant? Do you sing that?’
‘Certainly,’ said Ciaran. ‘But I’m a very indifferent performer.’
Lauren Mayhew blew a plume of smoke into the air and looked straight at him. ‘I should think you perform rather well,’ she said coolly.
There was a silence. Isarel thought: well, he asked for that one. How will he field it, I wonder?
But Ciaran showed not the least trace of embarrassment. At his most Irish, he said, ‘Ah, it’s a long time since I was at concert pitch, Ms Mayhew,’ and infused his tone with such a note of regret that Lauren laughed.
‘I guess I asked for that,’ she said. ‘Would you take it as a double entendre if I said, Sorry and I hope there are no hard feelings?’
‘Oh, that’d be an insult,’ said Ciaran, at once.
Lauren blinked, and then leaned forward. ‘Listen, Ciaran, you’re an ascetic fighting to quench the man of the world, right? Well, if the ascetic ever loses the fight, remember I’m in the phone book.’ She looked back at Isarel speculatively and said, ‘That goes for you as well. You never know, you might get bored with Irish solitude in Jude Weissman’s haunted house.’
There was a brief pause. Isarel looked at her. ‘So you know who I am, do you?’
‘Sure I do. Anyone in the music business would know. I don’t mean rubbish music, which is what I mostly handle: I mean Kate’s kind of music. The serious stuff.’ She stubbed out her cigarette. ‘You’re Jude’s grandson,’ she said. ‘I know the story and it isn’t a very nice story, but it isn’t your fault that your grandfather sold out to the Nazis.’ She narrowed her eyes thoughtfully. ‘You’re very like him, aren’t you? I mean you’re like his photographs.’
‘So I’ve been told.’ Isarel reached for the wine bottle and re-filled their glasses. ‘Tell us about this man on Hampstead Heath, Lauren.’
‘Conrad Vogel.’
‘Conrad Vogel,’ said Isarel thoughtfully. ‘Yes, I thought that was what you said.’ At his side, Ciaran looked up.
Lauren said, ‘The whole idea of bringing him to justice was like something out of a Thirties novel – The Thirty-Nine Steps or something. John Buchan and Bulldog Drummond, did you ever read those guys?’
‘Yes,’ said Isarel.
‘It was like something out of one of those books. The wronged heroine chasing after the villain to wreak revenge. Corny, but it was something Kate had to do. She was wild with anger and bitterness over what had happened to Richard – well, so we all were. But she believed in that music – the Black Chant – very strongly indeed.’
‘That sounds as if you didn’t,’ said Isarel, and Lauren paused.
‘I thought it was a little far-fetched if you want the truth,’ she said, at last. ‘I certainly believed her about the cult thing, because it’s the kind of thing that kids – especially students – get involved in. But as for the music—I thought it was more likely that Vogel was using – what do you call it – that thing they do with computers that affects the mind?’
‘Fractal,’ said Isarel. ‘Not dangerous by itself, but if it’s used alongside drugs it’s mind-blowing.’
‘I thought he might be using something like that,’ said Lauren. ‘Or even drugs on their own, and either way he was going to get his come-uppance eventually. But I went along with Kate, because I thought that what she was doing might be cathartic, you know? Turning grief into positive action. The business was doing pretty well here – not making a fortune but doing pretty well – and for Kate to take a brief sabbatical wasn’t going to ruin us. How it worked in the end was that Kate travelled about a bit but she made sure never to be away for more than two or three weeks at a stretch. And then she worked like a fiend when she got back. We aren’t really in a nine to five set-up anyway and it pretty much balanced out.’
Ciaran asked carefully, ‘Kate’s husband—Is there any possibility that he could be connected with her disappearance?’
‘God no,’ said Lauren at once. ‘Richard would never do anything that would hurt Kate. He wouldn’t do anything that would hurt anyone. He’s a humanist. Split up the word “gentleman” and you’ve got him. A gentle man. But fun. Nice. He’s smashed up physically, of course.’
‘Were they happily married?’ said Isarel. He caught the faintest flicker of movement from Ciaran.
‘Ecstatic. Old fashioned, isn’t it? Mind you,’ said Lauren, ‘I wouldn’t like to take a Bible oath that Kate hasn’t consoled herself once or twice in the last three years.’
‘She’s taken – lovers?’
‘My, what a word.’ Lauren regarded Ciaran with amusement. ‘Yes, she’s taken lovers. She didn’t screw around, but I’m pretty sure that there’ve been one or two affairs—Listen, she’s thirty-three and she’s clever and attractive and normal. Richard wouldn’t have known, because Kate wouldn’t have let him. And although Kate never said it – too loyal – I’d guess that what happened to him was a bit of a—’ She caught Ciaran’s eye and grinned. ‘It mentally emasculated him,’ said Lauren. ‘Which means Kate would need to blow off a little sexual steam from time to time, like all of us.’ She sent Ciaran another of her mischievous looks. ‘Like most of us,’ she amended. ‘You met her, didn’t you?’
‘I did.’ Ciaran’s voice was devoid of all expression.
Lauren reached for her bag and shrugged her shoulders into her jacket. ‘I think you’d better come out to Kate’s house,’ she said. ‘Richard’s still there of course, and Moira.’
‘I should like,’ said Ciaran thoughtfully, ‘to see Moira again.’
‘Well, maybe between us we can figure something out,’ said Lauren. She looked at them both. ‘All right?’
Ciaran and Isarel exchanged a quick look. Then Isarel said, ‘All right.’
Chapter Thirty-One
Rain lashed against the windows and by four o’clock it was almost dark, but inside Kate’s house fires had been lit and lights burned and the central heating purred comfortingly in the radiators. Moira, who was still cold and numb at what had happened to Kate and filled with sick horror at what might be ahead, was grateful for the interlude of warmth and the feeling of safety.
When Kate’s partner telephoned to ask could she bring over a couple of fellow co
llaborators, and then explained who they were, Moira merely said, ‘What time will I expect you?’ and went off to put a pot of coffee to percolate. She examined her lack of surprise and came to the conclusion that it was because there had been so many shocks and so many extraordinary things happening that she was incapable of feeling astonished at anything.
But setting out the cups and saucers, she was aware of the familiar, half-guilty spiral of pleasurable anticipation at the thought of seeing Ciaran. And I’ll be seeing him on a different footing to the one we were on in Curran Glen, she thought. We’ll be bound together in this bizarre adventure. Ahasuerus and the music and trying to find Kate.
Ciaran arrived first, entirely without ceremony, and sat at the kitchen table, explaining about the journey across to England, and the ancient vow to guard Ahasuerus’s tomb.
‘And this will be a council of war,’ he said, sending her the remembered smile. ‘We’ll be pooling information and ideas.’ A pause. ‘It’s good to see you, Moira.’
He was exactly as he had always been; the clear, grey eyes, the mobile, Irish mouth, emphasised rather than hidden by the short, chestnut beard. The strong, under-the-surface glamour was exactly as it had always been as well. It was the first time Moira had seen him wearing anything other than the dark, rather shapeless monastic robes, and she thought that dressed like this he was more masculine and much more authoritative. But he was watching her covertly, and Moira braced herself for the inevitable enquiry. It did not come quite as she had anticipated. Ciaran, helping with the coffee-making as naturally as if he had lived here for years, merely said, ‘Listen now, did you finally run away from him, Moira?’ and Moira, who had been wondering how on earth she was going to explain about running away, was jolted into a plain truthful answer, exactly as she had been with Kate.
‘He came to my room one night—’ She stopped, and Ciaran said,
‘Ah. Yes, I understand,’ and Moira had the feeling that he really did understand, and that he was not very surprised.
‘I’m not going back,’ she said, a bit too loudly.
‘Do you really think we’d let you?’ said Ciaran, and Moira suddenly felt warm and safe and surrounded by friends. “We” might have meant the monks at Curran Glen, or Ciaran and Kate, or Ciaran and any of the people mixed up in this extraordinary adventure, but whoever it meant, it was a good word.
But she said, ‘I left a note for Mother and the twins – and I’ve written to them to say I’m all right. Only—’
‘Yes?’
‘I can’t help wondering what Father will be feeling,’ said Moira, in a rush. ‘About what he’ll say and do.’
Ciaran took a minute to answer. ‘I think,’ he said at last, ‘that he’ll come up with some story that puts him in a favourable light, and I think that in time he’ll come to almost believe it himself. He’s got a very flexible conscience, Edward Mahoney.’ The sudden smile lifted his lips. ‘He’s a selfish man, Moira and a self-satisfied one as well, and those kind of people have their own armour. Tell me what happened when you left? You ran into Kate while she was robbing the crypt, I suppose?’
‘More or less,’ said Moira, and grinned.
‘And the pair of you joined forces. What a combination,’ said Ciaran, and Moira remembered that Ciaran had met Kate and started to ask about this, when the door knocker clattered again.
‘That’s probably Lauren and Isarel,’ said Ciaran, standing up. ‘They were going to Lauren’s office to look up something about this Serse cult, and then coming here.’
Moira had met Lauren when Richard called in the police after they had chased, and lost, Conrad Vogel. They had all sat up until what had felt like dawn trying to persuade the police to search for Vogel, and Lauren had sat up with them and had been bracing and practical and very scathing indeed about the police’s thinly veiled belief that Kate had gone off with a boyfriend. Moira had liked Lauren for that. But she said now, ‘Isarel?’
‘Isarel West,’ said Ciaran. ‘Jude’s grandson. Aggressive and clever and temperamental. The charm of an angel and the temper of a devil. And an extraordinary musician. I’m beginning to think he’s Jude’s reincarnation.’
‘Is he another collaborator?’ asked Moira.
‘He is. We’re all chasing the same villain.’
‘I hope the collaborators don’t all need feeding,’ said Moira, going to open the front door. ‘Because we’ve almost run out of food.’
Moira had feared that Richard would retreat to his attic again, but although he had not answered the door, when Moira carried the coffee things in to the large sitting room he was seated with his back to the light, the dark glasses firmly in place.
There had been a curious flicker of something from Ciaran as he shook hands with Kate’s husband: Moira had the oddest feeling that it was nothing to do with Richard’s disfigurement, and she had looked up from pouring coffee. But Ciaran had merely said something about not wanting to intrude on an awkward or painful time, explaining that they believed they might be of some help, and then had sat down in a chair on the other side of the hearth, and the moment had passed. Moira handed round the coffee, and then curled on to one of the low seats, preparing to listen and studying Isarel West covertly.
Ciaran had said: The charm of an angel and the temper of a devil, and Moira thought that the temper could probably be very stormy indeed, but that charm was quite the wrong word. Charm suggested a calculating facility to be all things to all men, and Isarel West looked as if he would never trouble to be anything other than his exact self to anyone in the world. A kind of modern-day Sydney Carton, caring for no man, and not minding if no man cared for him. What Moira had been totally unprepared for was his astonishing likeness to Jude.
It was Ciaran who said, ‘We’re here to pool our information and see if we can discover where Conrad Vogel has gone,’ but it was Isarel West who said, in his cool English voice,
‘I know where he’s gone. At least, I can make an educated guess.’
The others stared at him. Then Richard said, ‘You can?’
‘I think so. I guessed when Lauren first mentioned the name of the man behind the Serse Concert.’
‘Conrad Vogel.’
‘Yes.’ Isarel took the coffee that Moira handed him, and stirred it, assembling his thoughts. After a moment, he said, ‘Fifty years ago, in a place in Eastern Germany, my grandfather performed a piece of music he had written, and that he called the Devil’s Piper.’ He paused, and Moira suddenly knew with a queer little thrill what was coming.
Isarel said, ‘The place was Eisenach Castle. That’s somewhere on a border of what used to be called Thuringia, quite near Weimar, in one of those tiny, once-free states made up of dukedoms, all with names like Saxe or Schwarzburg. The concert is famous: it’s described in all the books about Jude – what a glittering marvellous night it was, all the important people who attended.’
‘Kate’s book even mentions the music,’ said Moira without thinking, and looked up to see amusement in Isarel’s eyes. It was the first time he had smiled and Moira found herself hoping he would smile again.
‘Yes,’ said Isarel. ‘As Moira says, one or two even mention the music, although most of them concentrate on how the women fainted because of Jude’s magnetism, and how the Devil’s Piper rocked them in the aisles. Probably the fainting women are an exaggeration—’
‘Also rocking in the aisles in the Nineteen Thirties.’ This, inevitably, was Lauren, who was seated opposite to Ciaran, a battered briefcase at the side of her chair. ‘Is it true that he had a different mistress for every piece of music he played—Sorry, Brother Ciaran.’ She looked at Moira over her glasses and winked, and Moira understood Lauren was as appalled as anyone at what had happened to Kate, but that she found Ciaran attractive and could not resist half-mischievously flirting with him.
Isarel said, ‘Nothing would surprise me about Jude. But it was at Eisenach that he met the man who was Hitler’s Special Envoy, and it was at Eisenach that he
threw in his lot with the Nazis.’ He paused, and Moira suddenly thought: he’s hating this. He’s hating having to talk about Jude being a traitor.
Richard was leaning forward, his eyes on Isarel. When he said, ‘Go on,’ Moira knew he had forgotten about being awkward and bitter, and knew that this was the real Richard, the one with whom she had shared that frantic abortive car-chase across London.
Isarel glanced at Richard and Moira saw that he looked at him precisely as he would have looked at anyone. He said, ‘The name of that Special Envoy never got into any of the history books about the war, or about Jude himself. But my father knew his name, and I know it as well.’ He paused. ‘He was a man called Karl Vogel.’
There was a sudden silence. Ciaran said, ‘Son – grandson?’
‘Grandson, I should think.’ Isarel was watching Richard, and after a moment, Richard said,
‘You think that’s where Conrad’s gone, don’t you?’
‘Yes I do. I think he’s taken Kate and Ahasuerus back to where the music last surfaced. Eisenach Castle.
‘And I think we’ve got to follow him.’
This time it was Lauren who broke the silence.
She said, ‘I hadn’t credited the Serse cult with too much importance before, but when Isarel told me about Karl Vogel it felt like a pattern was beginning to emerge.’
‘Not a very nice pattern,’ murmured Ciaran.
‘Hellish,’ said Lauren cheerfully. ‘But it began to sound as if Serse’s People might be more of a force than I’d reckoned on, so I figured it was worth checking into my Email.’ She glanced at Ciaran and Moira. ‘That’s a kind of computer mailing service. Electronic mail. It’s largely junk-stuff which means I don’t look at it as often as I should: circulars about forthcoming events, publicity releases by road managers or other agents. Ninety per cent dross, ten per cent gold.’ A brusque shrug. ‘But if anything was about to happen with Serse’s People – a concert or an event, or something that linked Vogel with Eisenach – it was possible the details had been circulated.’
